File under you may just be a genius after all:
When Frank Lynn Meshberger, M.D., visited the Sistine Chapel for the first time he was struck, like the millions of visitors who had been there before him, by the incredible mastery of the works he saw there. He was also impressed by the medical accuracy and instructive beauty of the Creation of Adam panel in particular, but kept quiet about it, assuming that everyone already knew. But after he returned home and researched the panel online and at his local library, he couldn't find any references to what he had seen so clearly. Finally, Meshberger published his neuroanatomical interpretation in “An Interpretation of Machaelangelo’s Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy” in the Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 264. No one will ever see the panel the same way again.
On close examination, borders in the painting correlate with sulci in the inner and outer surface of the brain, the brain stem, the basilar artery, the pituitary gland and the optic chiasm. God's outstretched hand resembles a synaptic cleft. Below the right arm of God is a weeping angel in an area of the brain activated when someone experiences sadness. God is superimposed over the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain.
.-------------------------.
/ (God's shoulders) \
(God's head) / sulcus /\ \
cortex --> / cinguli / \ \
| ........../ >..... |
| (God's chest) \ |
| | cingulate `..../
| | ,' gyrus of '-
' - ,' limbic cortex | <--cerebellum (God's right foot/angel arm)
\ ,._ .. ......|
fissure --> ----' `._____________ `-.
of , ` '-._ `-. spinal cord (angel's leg)
Silvius optic `--. `-. `-
(cloak fold) tract -- '
(angel leg) pituitary stalk (angel's leg)
Personally, I'm sold that this is far more than coincidence. Like Paul is Dead, It's fun to believe. Given that, I can't figure out what Michelangelo was saying. Was he making the most profound athiestic statement of his day, that God is nothing more than a construct of/in the brain? Or perhaps the most devout, that even though the brain is the seat of consciousness, that God is at its center? Or perhaps he just wanted to get away with a good joke that took us 500 years to get?